


The Problem with Talents

by Tay Queen (Washedawaycloud)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Flash Fiction, Gen, Short Story, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 09:18:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16472810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Washedawaycloud/pseuds/Tay%20Queen
Summary: Sometimes you just need to get back in your car and keep on driving.





	The Problem with Talents

“Jesus _Fuck_.” The words are out of my mouth faster than I can comprehend thinking them. It doesn’t even register because what I’m seeing is a mind fuck in itself. I’ve always been a little…odd. A little, _more_ than the average person. I can see in the ground like really see, and fossils are really plentiful in the places no one deems important. 

But _that_ isn’t important right now. Right now, what’s important is the sleepy little town I’m meant to be vacationing in, in backwoods almost Canada New York – is littered with bones. It’s not the occasional skeleton with an arrowhead or anything or something weird or something fascinated lodged somewhere equally interesting. This is – this town is built on bones. The land is bones. I’m surprised the dirt isn’t fucking white that’s how many bones I’m seeing. So many bones and little creepy crawlies picking what they could from them. There’s no dirt but a few thing layers here and there.

It’s enough to give even the strongest person the heebie-jeebies and I’m no strapping paragon of mental fortitude – talent or no talent. It’s just. Eerie. Because the town is truly sleepy, I’d hit the tree line at daybreak and parked my little smart car at the one gas station for ten miles around and 30 before that and before that _60_ and finally looked around. I’m seriously contemplating getting in the car and high tailing it to Montreal because this is some History Channel uncannyvillle special shit. 

If I’d been paying attention, maybe I wouldn’t have approached. But – now I’m here. Now people are looking at me as I look at the ground, I can feel the stares and have to shake my head to look at the pump. Numbers are still going, still flipping by faster than the eye wants to see. 

Fuck. 

“Hi there!” 

 _Double fuck_. I blink and hope that cheery voice is aimed at someone else, anyone else, someone the voices’ owner knows. Not me, anyone by me. But silence reigns and there is a pit forming in my stomach. I’m not that lucky.

“You must be new here, or are you just passing through?” That cheery voice is at it again, and I force myself to look up. I’m not sure if I’m expecting a demon in pearls or an axe murderer but I can say this woman is neither. A little Judy Home-Maker meets Jane the Lumberjack if I’m being honest. Hair from the later eighties into nineties, makeup in this decade at least, can’t be more than more than sixty but definitely, not less than forty, pastel t-shirt with camo USA emblazoned across it.  Well worn keds, well-washed jeans. 

“Just passing through,” I manage to mumble, mind at odds with the pastel countrywoman and the bones very clearly beneath her feet. Someone trucked in the dirt to level off the ground, had to, the layer is so even as my eyes pan out toward the road. The road paved over so many times there are bones in some layers – crushed but there all the same. 

I repeat. _Jesus Fuck_. 

“Sorry about a little earlier. Didn’t realize anyone was around, usually, I’m far politer than all that.” What day is it? God, it better not be Sunday, or I am even more screwed. 

“It was jarring, no doubt about it, but it’s nothing worse than what my own son and daughter spout from time to time when they think I’m not paying attention.” She’s so- _nice_. This is all kinds of unnatural. I just want to ask, loudly, forcefully, if she knows there are bones two feet beneath her feet. If at least four years of paving ago no one had mentioned the bones in the road? 

“Oh, wait, aren’t you that reporter due in to review the bed and breakfast that opened last month? I was reading it in the local paper, that some travel company was looking to send someone out to our sugar bush country and have a city gal or guy come out and tell the rest of the world what it’s all about up here. As if there aren’t already books about it.” Still pleasant. Terribly nosy, but not wrong, either. Damn. There goes turning around and driving back to civilization, safety, and a distinct lack of mass murder or plague. If I know _one thing_ about small-town America from the kids I went to college with – is that if _one_ of the towns knows _all_ of the town knows and that travel site I’m Freelancing for _will know_.  But, they can’t know what I look like. That’s impossible. My license is in the car, the car is shut. No magazines, just my books, and pocketbook, suitcase in the back, credit card in my pocket.

Suitcase could have given me away but travelers are travelers. “New B&B? That sounds lovely, but I’m actually headed over into Canada. I wanted to see Westmont and the Cathedral-Basilica among other things. My grandparents had friends there, and always told the most enchanting stories. Not to mention there’s the option of swinging over to Niagra, get to see the forts. I’m a bit of a History buff if I’m honest, and love travel.” 

“But traveling alone? That’s got to be lonely. How long you been on the road?” 

Her question claims me up tighter than a drum. Danger, Danger. If you’re going to murder someone, definitely take the ones who aren’t going to be missed. I wonder ow many of the bones beneath my feet are those of people who no one had ever questioned the loss of? 

“Oh, I usually travel with my sister and fiancé, but it’s the time of year when you can hardly get anyone out of the office let alone out of town. I was going stir crazy and half melting back home. Figured the North would be a little more hospitable, weather wise, for a nice short trip. Interstate 87 is beautiful, and Route 9 has some breathtaking views - even if I am still melting a little,” I force a laugh, happy that I’ve had just enough practice with people at various networking dos that the forced laugh doesn’t sound fake enough to spot right off. 

It doesn’t seem to appease Miss Pastel and Keds. The handle of the gas pump jumps in my hand, and I’ve never been happier to be drawn out of a conversation before in my life. Might be an exaggeration in this slice of time, but it’s the bones. If it were just legs and ribs, feet and hands, I’d be fine. But there are skulls under my feet, devoid of eyes, still looking at me as if to judge. 

She’s quiet as I finish off my task, and I keep my card facing me, so happy to have a bumpy scrawl masquerading as my name in cursive. Nothing to track me down with. I’m getting the hell out of here. I flash a smile, pocketing the card. 

“You have a lovely day now, Ma’am.” I drawl it out like my skin isn’t crawling and the hairs aren’t up on the back of my neck still, deftly opening my door and sliding into the car, the door following close behind. It’s disturbing how she keeps watch, a half smile on her lips. As disturbing as the stillness I’m noticing. No bird calls, no woodpeckers. Yes. It’s time to get the hell out. 

I don’t look in the rearview as I drive away, knuckles white on the steering wheel until the town of bones is far behind me. 


End file.
